New Sony Vaio SE & bloatware

I received my new Vaio yesterday and just getting everything set up. It does not have the volume of bloatware I received on some PC's in the past (ie Dell). I have a couple questions:

1. Vaio loaded bloatware; Has anyone kept the Vaio Care, Gate, X-fer, etc? It all seems redundent.
2. How many CD's do you need to create the restore discs?
3. Any 'tips' on anything appreciated.

So far, its a nice machine, very different from the Thinkpad I've had for six years.

 

If it's anything like the Vaio Z1:

1. I did a full clean install without the recovery disks. Much faster. You only really need Control Center and Smart Network, everything else is bloatware. (and you'll need drivers of course, but Windows can manage most of those by itself)

2. For me it was 2 single-layer DVD's.

3. Enjoy your laptop ^^

 

I think it took three DVD+Rs for my Vaio F2. And yeah, most of the "bloatware" is pretty unobtrusive, particularly compared to the Dell Inspiron I just set up for my boss. I got mine with Fresh Start, so I didn't have Gate (the dock) or Picture Motion Browser or free trial antivirus software, but I've still got some stuff (webcam software, Vaio Care, etc). Haven't bothered to uninstall any of it, and have no objections with my machine's performance.

 

I agree; most of the s/w is not so obtrusive compared to some other brands. Also, a lot of the preloaded apps are not even listed in the uninstall or change program list (like PMB). I figured as much for Sony stuff. Whats the best way to get rid of apps not listed in the uninstall tool?

 

You can uninstall most of the bloatware through Vaio Care, except for Vaio Gate. Vaio Care itself is on the bloaty side, so first I'd use Vaio Care to uninstall any bloatware you can, then disable Vaio Care and Vaio Gate from running at startup. If you look in Task Scheduler, there are a number of tasks related to these two applications. You can set them to "Disabled" without deleting the tasks, so you can always re-enable the tasks later if you want them for some strange reason. Also check msconfig for any startup entries related to Vaio (Gate | Care), and disable VCService and Vaio Care Performance Service.

If you later want to run Vaio Care, e.g. to check for system updates, then you can re-enable VCService before starting up Vaio Care.

 

That is what I thought, but my s/w - uninstall section in VC does not list any programs. POS.

I guess you get what you pay for.

 

in add/remove programs there is a sony application manager. Click uninstall and it will launch the application manager and allow you to uninstall different things.

 

I don't have that option (Win7 Pro).

 

What option to you not have? you have a "programs and features" option in control panel. Then act like you are going to uninstall vaio application manager or something along those lines and the uninstall utility will be launched.

 

I uninstalled the Vaio Messenger; it just ininstalled. No secondary manager. The only other Sony options/apps I have in the "uninstall or change program" tool, are Vaio Care and Vaio help & support. I started to uninstall Vaio help & support and it went straight to the uninstall (so I cancelled it).

I wonder if I have a setting in Vaio Care that is preventing me from seeing a list of programs to uninstall?

 

What if you run the VAIO Application Manager directly?

C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Vaio Uninstaller\VaioUninstaller.exe

 

I'm having the same experience you are--"uninstall VAIO software" in Vaio Care comes up blank.